


Trying

by whichstiel



Series: Season 13 Codas [16]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode: s13e15 A Most Holy Man, M/M, episode coda, spn 13x15
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 11:41:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13926426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichstiel/pseuds/whichstiel
Summary: The airplane whines like a sick animal as it dips in a bubble of air. The passenger next to Castiel sucks in a sharp breath and he can’t help but share her concern. Out of all the passengers, he would be the most likely to survive a terrible crash. But the prospect of healing from a multitude of burns or swimming to safety for days is unwelcome. And then there’s the matter of his cargo.





	Trying

The airplane whines like a sick animal as it dips in a bubble of air. The passenger next to Castiel sucks in a sharp breath and he can’t help but share her concern. Out of all the passengers, he would be the most likely to survive a terrible crash. But the prospect of healing from a multitude of burns or swimming to safety for days is unwelcome. And then there’s the matter of his cargo. 

Castiel resists the urge to pat his breast pocket, which holds a tiny sliver of wood impaling a shriveled fruit. Delicate dried moss still clings to the wood and Castiel hopes it survived the journey in its wrappings. With spells, it’s so necessary to get the ingredients right. Perhaps the fruit of the tree of life is a literal thing; perhaps it is the ecosystem of life preserved on that little stick. The security agent in France was overly enthusiastic in her examination of Castiel’s person, her weapon-detecting wand continuously perturbed by the slow sing of grace through his bones and the unmanifested angel blade stored up his sleeve. The box he’s carrying the fruit in will contain all the pieces, at least.

Castiel flew to Turkey just over a week ago with a map copied from the Men of Letters library and a contact for a supply caravan. Since then he’d been bloodied and muddied, evaded cursed traps, and fought pirates. But now the bunker is mere hours away. Castiel shifts his shoulders restlessly against the seatback, his eyes closed in feigned sleep, and waits for the journey to conclude.

It’s hot on the plane and the scent of Castiel’s fellow passengers mingles with the overly sugared cookies and soda the flight attendants passed out earlier. It’s a striking contrast from the salty cool breezes of Arwad, a city so closely constructed that it wholly consumed the island on which it was built. If Castiel concentrates, he can still drown his senses in the memory of sea wind scraping over the city before he escaped Arwad and headed for home. 

Above his head the seatbelt sign pings musically and the intercom crackles throughout the plane. “Beginning our descent. Flight attendants prepare for landing.” 

* * *

The airplane lands. Castiel makes his way through the jumble of disembarking passengers and finds his connecting flight to Kansas City. This next flight is shorter and Castiel is back at his battered car before the sun sets. 

He drives down the rural roads to the bunker with his windows cracked open. The car moves too fast to hear anything other than rushing wind, but the motion is a relief after hours of sitting on airplanes and hard plastic airport seats. In the quiet of the road Castiel allows himself, for the first time since he left the bunker, to think about Dean. 

When they parted, Dean had still been addressing him with a demeanor that was half enraged rhinoceros, half kicked puppy. He hadn’t questioned Castiel’s plan since they had returned from dropping off Donatello’s mindless body at the hospital but unease lay thickly over the trio in the bunker. The three of them had buried themselves in research, unearthing clues for the first two ingredients quickly. Castiel had offered to travel the farthest. On the surface, him traveling to Syria was the most practical choice. Dean’s crippling fear of flying coupled with the Winchesters’ propensity for wearing flannel and butchering conversational languages other than English meant that Castiel was the best person for the job. It also afforded him the most distance. His cell phone didn’t work in most of the area he’d traveled, for one. He lost himself in the beautiful but war-savaged mountains of Syria, journeying alone for all but the beginning of his trip. In so doing he thinks he has managed to create a font of calm isolation from which he can draw for the looming battle against Michael. 

As Castiel approaches the bunker that pool of calm ripples. The worry of being on the wrong path surges up again, shadowed by the specter of Dean’s doubt in his decisions. His success in obtaining the fruit should help. It should show that he is on the correct path. 

Worry gnaws at Castiel. 

Anger wears at him as well, scrubbing against his calm like a relentless tide. Dean and Sam have only seen shades of Michael’s destruction. This world’s Michael rots in a cell in Hell. Castiel thinks, as his knuckles whiten on the steering wheel, that this world and all of its spiritual spheres are far better for it. The Michael they know followed a script, dutifully obeying the rules of God’s prophecy. Freed from that outline, Castiel knows that Michael will only rest once the subjugation of everyone - spirit or animate - is complete. Anger burns at Castiel’s core at Michael’s holy bloodlust, at the cowardice of angels, but most of all at his own failings. He was the one who weakened this world’s Heaven and weakened himself. Castiel is a soldier for the Winchesters now, and he’s never felt more alone or adrift. 

* * *

Out of habit, Castiel parks outside the front door of the bunker. He has the bespelled black box in his glove compartment, and could open the garage with it. He could, but he won’t. Castiel turns off the car and fishes out his key to open the heavy bunker door. 

The hinges scream his arrival and Dean immediately looks up from the library table. He’s sitting surrounded by books, a computer open an arm’s length away and a legal pad and pen by his elbow. As he looks up at Castiel he runs a hand through his hair vigorously and then rolls his neck. It cracks, and he smiles in something like relief. “Cas! You’re back. Good trip?”

“Fruitful.”

“Heh.” Dean stands up as Castiel descends the stairs and holds out his hand expectantly. Castielopens up his coat and draws out the small package. The linen it’s wrapped in exudes traces of the rose incense that permeated the inner chambers of the sea mosque. Castiel brushes the box fastidiously, then hands it over. He watches as Dean carefully nestles the narrow box in one hand. With the other, he takes off the lid. Dean wrinkles his nose at the shriveled fruit inside and Castiel cranes his neck to get a better look. Dried moss is, indeed, everywhere, blasted from where it fractured from the desiccated stem. “Dunno what I was expecting,” Dean finally says.

“Religious relics are rarely equal to their legend,” Castiel says gravely. 

“Hmm.” Dean takes the box and slides it to the middle of the table, nudging it against the edge of a wide ceramic bowl. “Well, that’s two.” He points a finger towards the kitchen. “Blood’s on ice until we need it.” He grabs the top of his laptop and turns it around. “And Sam’s just got a line on the third.”

Castiel bends low and squints at the computer display. The website appears to be from a museum exhibition advertisement. “The Word In Biblical Times” tops the page in big, bold letters. Dean reaches over and taps a finger at the middle of the screen. “Archives. Ancient texts about King Solomon. We figure maybe we head over and take a look.”

“You think there might be some clue in these archives as to what the seal might be.”

“Can’t hurt to check.”

Castiel nods. “Very well.” He scrolls up to the top of the page and makes note of the exhibition details. Then he swivels the laptop back to Dean and begins to turn away from the table. “I’ll leave right away.”

“Whoa whoa,” Dean mouth drops open and he extends one hand out. “What the hell, man? You just got back. Stay and have a drink at least.”

“I don’t need—”

“Stay and have a drink.” It comes out like a harsh command but when Castiel meets his eye, ready to fling the fate of the world in his face, he falters. Dean’s eyes are wide and his lips parted as though in mid speech. Castiel sighs, feels himself shrinking back into his skin, then pulls out a chair and sits down. 

Once again he sits on stiff seating, fingers laced in his lap while Dean jumps up and grabs two beers from the mini fridge. He cracks open the first bottle and sets it two chairs over from the laptop,right next to Castiel. Dean pulls out the chair and settles into it with a gusty sigh, then opens up the second bottle and slides it in front of Castiel. They sit together, sipping quietly. Finally, Dean says, “So tell me about your trip.” He throws a long glance from Castiel’s hair to his arms, resting on the table. “You get hurt? You okay?”

“I’m fine, Dean,” Castiel says, choosing to skirt along the outline of the truth. “I had some…adventures. But I made it out fine in the end.”

Dean raises a sharp brow at that. “Adventures, hmm?” He settles back further into his chair. “Hit me.” He softens the request with a slow smile, so like his most carefree self that Castiel relaxes. He starts to talk.

Castiel tells him about his arrival in Turkey. How he was booted from the convoy into Syria after he drew attention to himself. “The child would have died otherwise,” he tells Dean earnestly. He tells him about the abandoned temple in the mountains, the old woman in the village on the bank of the Euphrates that directed him to the Arwad mosque. The pirates.

Dean guffaws at that. “Pirates,” he repeats with an astonishing amount of glee considering that the pirates had managed to punch on hole through Castiel’s shoulder. “I don’t believe it.”

“Well,” Castiel counters. “Believe it.” He describes the windswept mosque overlooking the rough seas on the day he stole the fruit. Then he sighs. “It was difficult to leave, in a way.”

“How so?” Dean picks at the edge of his bottle label. Tiny flecks of paper dot the warm wood, stuck in puddles of condensation. 

Castiel stares at Dean’s busy hands, and orders his words into place. “Leaving Syria,” he begins, “felt a little like turning my back on the world. I know there is nothing more constant than human-inflicted pain and suffering.” He sighs and looks down at his own hands wrapping around the bottle. He smoothes his thumb along the glass and water gathers on his skin. “It's everywhere. And yet—”

“You thought you could do more. Wanted to do more.” Dean looks at him with something like understanding in his eyes. “Yeah, maybe I get that. You fix one thing, another thing breaks. But maybe…”

“Maybe it doesn’t,” Castiel finishes. “Maybe it gets better. Sometimes. If you try.”

“Maybe.” Dean frowns and nods at the table before glancing up at Castiel. “Been thinking a lot about that. Could be that trying’s what saves us. Saving somebody. Even if you can’t get to everyone. Fixing... Fixing whatever you can.” After a long silence he clears his throat and lifts his bottle towards Castiel. “Here’s to trying.”

Castiel stares at Dean for a moment, testing for the disapproval, the sarcasm. When none presents, he picks up his own bottle and clinks it against Dean’s. “Here’s to trying.”

**Author's Note:**

> "I'll write some fluff this week!" 
> 
> _writes moody feelings instead_
> 
> Thanks for reading! I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/whichstiel) and [Tumblr](http://whichstiel.tumblr.com/) @ whichstiel. You may also like the Supernatural recap and gif blog I co-write/curate, [Shirtless Sammy](https://shirtlesssammy.tumblr.com/).


End file.
